Monday, November 22, 2010

Why I Ditched Left-Libertarianism

Sorry, but I'm not a "left-libertarian" anymore. My rejection of "left-libertarianism" goes beyond the label.

I'm using the definition of "left-libertarianism" of Charles W. Johnson. He defines "left-libertarianism" as someone who is not only a libertarian, but also supports the feminist movement, the anti-racist movement, and the anti-police movement.

I don't think that this society oppresses females more than males. I think some feminists are misconceived of the male-female "wage gap" and the "glass ceiling." I don't think it's due to discrimination at all.

Yes, I agree that rape is a big issue towards society. I agree that rape is not uncommon and it's sometimes under-reported. However, there are so many false accusations of rape against men. I agree that those false accusations of rape against men downplay the seriousness of rape against women.

However, I don't think "rape" is only a female issue that should be listed under "feminism." Men don't rape women because they hate women. But it's common for feminists to label "rape" as a "hate crime" against women.

I don't think patriarchy does exist in this society as it did in the past. But feminists think patriarchy does exist, because of the "wage-gap" and the "glass ceiling." There are not many powerful women. There are not many rich women. That's what they argue.

However, I think it's more due to culture rather than discrimination. Females choose take care of their children and do housework than men. So they don't have much time to pursue careers.

Violence against women by men is stigmatized. Contrastingly, violence against men by women is trivialized.

There's actually a huge bias against males. For example, if a conflict occurs between and male and a female, the male will be immediately assumed as responsible for the conflict, even though there is NO PROOF that the male is indeed responsible. In other words, if there's evidence suggest that it's the *male* is responsible, the evidence will be remembered. However, any evidence which suggests that the *female* is responsible will be *ignored* or rationalized away. This is because they have a confirmation bias against males.

It's the same thing with the anti-racist movement. I don't think this society is racist. Yes, it was racist in the past. But I don't think the current society is racist, except for the few white supremacists.

I think the underachievement of blacks and Hispanics is more due to culture rather than discrimination. It's common for anti-racists to paint "wage-gaps" as a result of "racism" when I think it's due to culture.

Same thing with the feminist double-standard. Violence against blacks by whites is stigmatized. But violence against whites by blacks is trivialized.

I think that the feminists and anti-racists are being overly superstitious. They cherry pick the violence against women and minorities and then exaggerate them, so they seem to be more prevalent than they are. Conversely, they ignore the violence towards males and white people because they think it's more due to a specific circumstance rather than discrimination.

You know, it's common for people to exaggerate their enemies:

Referring the "free speech activists" as people who want the right to offend people.

Referring those who want to reduce immigration as "bigots."

Referring the anti-feminist movement as "misogynists."

Referring those who oppose homosexual marriage as "homophobes."

Referring people who doesn't hire racial minorities as "racists."

Referring the government as "criminals."

Again, I think police officers are portrayed as more evil than they actually are. Violence against civilians by the police is exaggerated, so police officers seem more violent than they actually are. It's due to a confirmation bias.

If you think about how many people have their lives saved by police officers, then you wouldn't hate them anymore.

Police officers, by themselves, aren't power-hungry or sadistic. *All* people will become sadistic and evil if you grant them the power.

In summary, I don't support the feminist movement, the anti-racist movement, and the anti-police movement anymore. While I do think that those movements are helpful in the past, I don't think those movements should still exist in this current society as much as they existed in the past.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

If you are back on, please check out the thread Praxeology and Linguistics here: http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/19298.aspx

and TONS of discussion here:

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/18573.aspx

The poster I. Ryan and I are both interested in creating entirely new languages; I am working on language with visual grammar and wiki-like specification of how the nouns and verbs carve up concept-space (how they slice up reality). The idea is to rework language to be consistent with fundamental epistemology, which I think has been completely butchered by philosophers. My conception of epistomology is in those threads, plus a few others.

Both geography and genetics obviously play a role in "civilizations". The poor soil and lack of domesticatable animals can explain a lack of civilization in Africa, it doesn't explain the universally low performance among blacks within places like the UK.

Also a conformist mentality can explain why Asian nations took longer to develop, but Asians can still be smarter than Europeans.

You can claim that IQ primarily measures visual-spatial reasoning, but that doesn't matter since IQ correlates very highly with income and other "positive social outcomes".

Just stand back, humans migrated out of Africa, and developed differently in different places. Different body structures in so many ways, yet the brains are to all be the same? Empirically, we know this to be false. Almost all studies have shown the aggregate brain sizes of blacks and whites to be DIFFERENT. Perhaps the smaller brain is "smarter", perhaps the larger one is. But they are different.

To say "the income gap is caused by culture" totally fails. Would there be no income gap if not for cultural issues? Would blacks be earning more if not for culture? Or still earning less, not just as much less? Even if this amorphous "culture" thing plays some role, you still have to come down on the issue finally.

There are differences between whites and Africans, but I don't believe that the differences are significant enough to explain the income gap.

There are many other variables which comes in play in explaining the income gap. There's culture. Also, the races may have different preferences. For example, whites may be more ambitious than blacks. Therefore whites earn more because they are more ambitious, not because they're more intelligent.

Whites may care more about their children. So they choose to earn more to provide for their children. It's basic kin-selection. Again, this may be another explanation for the income gap.

My two explanations of why whites earn more than blacks have nothing to do with their differences in intelligence.